Read Online Girl in Hyacinth Blue by Susan Vreeland - Free Book Online

were, first to Luxembourg and then to The Hague, while Josephine's salons ex ploded with new styles. And the tiny Dutch shops were no help. As empty as cells, those shops. Why they couldn't smuggle bolts of silk as well as casks of saltpeter is owed entirely to the dullness of the Dutch.
    And another thing: You should thank the blessed Virgin, my dear, that God has spared you the uncharitable corset makers in The Hague. I tell you they have not an ounce of mercy—the resent ment of the conquered toward his conqueror—no tender little words of understanding when they fit you, unlike Madame Adèle, my own corsetière, who says, I can hear her now, "It's only a question of rearranging the skin, madame." You really ought to try her. She does wonders in lifting the fallen. Rue St. Honoré just off the Place Vêndome.
    Nevertheless I set out to clothe myself anew, not just top to toe but air to skin, just in case. My sister Charlotte had written to me that women were beginning to wear pantalets, and then she de scribed them. Even if they were made of sheer lawn, oh, the discomfort of having rasping cloth there. Discreetly, I asked at a few shops. Not having heard of such a thing, they looked at me askance, so I had to content myself without, even though that distressed me somewhat. Surely Monsieur le C— knew more of what was being worn in Paris than I did, and I hated to be found wanting.
    Now where did I leave off? Oh, yes. The Bin nenhof. A plain palace from the outside that stretched along the south bank of the Vijver. It re deemed itself, though, once one entered the Trêves Zaal, where the concert would take place, a splen did white and gold reception hall imitating Louis XIV style, quite like the Galerie Dorée of the Hotel de Toulouse. The painted ceiling was dreamlike with clouds and cherubs, and so I was prepared to think the violinists, Monsieur le C— especially, were descending to us from Heaven.
    I worked my way toward the first few rows of seats and Gerard followed. The musicians were al ready seated, and there he was, first violinist, concen trating on tuning the orchestra. His white lace jabot frothed under his dear chin like a whipped dessert. The first movement, molte allegro, was a sprightly melody—tra-la-la, tra-la-la, tra-la-lalá it went, and his hands flitting about cast a spell on me. Hardly able to breathe in the sudden heat, I batted the air with my fan. By the happiest of chances, the gesture seemed to attract Monsieur le C—'s eye.
    He noticed me. Yes, I was sure of it.
    During the long andante his eyelids drooped provocatively over his instrument, and his bowing arm caressed the strings as if they were the heart strings of his beloved. He played the andante with such tenderness I nearly fainted. He must have been a child prodigy, some doting mother's dar ling. By the fourth movement I was dizzy to the point of rapture. You know the feeling or you wouldn't have asked me.
    As for Gerard during all of this, I couldn't say. He busied himself more and more with his columns of figures, with dispatches, and especially with the disenfranchised Dutch nobility. He bought a paint ing by a Dutch artist and began to smoke a long porcelain pipe. My husband, I am sorry to say, was becoming Dutch.
    I can't be sure but his defection may have started a year earlier. I remember it was late spring because the hyacinth on my dressing table had reached that stage of sadder, paler blue when its fragrance was most poignant because it was offer ing up the last of its zest. I had not yet executed my morning glories, that is to say, my morning rites at the dressing table. I had no plaster or powder on yet, and had not put on my ringlets. I was plucking when Gerard said something to me that I didn't hear; truth to say, though I rue it now, I ignored him because I cannot think, much less actually speak, when I am doing my face.
    "Claudine!" he said, so loud it startled me and I dropped my tweezers.
    The notion of lovers